| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: whose uniforms were concealed by cloth overcoats.
"You are among the advanced guard of the French army," answered one of
the officers. "You cannot stay here, for if the enemy makes a movement
and the artillery opens you will be between two fires."
"Ah!" she said, with an indifferent air.
Hearing that "Ah!" the other officer turned and said: "How did that
woman come here?"
"We are waiting," said Laurence, "for a gendarme who has gone to find
General Duroc, a protector who will enable us to speak to the
Emperor."
"Speak to the Emperor!" exclaimed the first officer; "how can you
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: After he had been with her three or four times it struck him that
to have come at last into her house had had the horrid effect of
diminishing their intimacy. He had known her better, had liked her
in greater freedom, when they merely walked together or kneeled
together. Now they only pretended; before they had been nobly
sincere. They began to try their walks again, but it proved a lame
imitation, for these things, from the first, beginning or ending,
had been connected with their visits to the church. They had
either strolled away as they came out or gone in to rest on the
return. Stransom, besides, now faltered; he couldn't walk as of
old. The omission made everything false; it was a dire mutilation
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